Celebrating National School Choice Week

For immediate release

Saturday, January 26, 2013
From: Bluegrass Institute

Celebrating National School Choice Week: Too bad Kentucky hardly has any

(LEXINGTON, Ky.) – Parents, students and educators nationwide will celebrate National School Choice Week beginning tomorrow.

Students in 41 states plus Washington, DC currently have the option of attending public charter schools, where parents – rather than zip codes or bureaucrats – ultimately decide where their child can best be educated.

Parents and students also are thrilled about growing evidence that charter schools are doing better and better, especially for minority and under-privileged students.

“It’s time for Kentucky’s legislators – especially those who claim to represent the interests of low-income, minority citizens – to step up to the plate and change the education picture in the commonwealth,” said Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free market think tank. “By the time School Choice Week 2014 rolls around, Kentuckians should be able to join the celebration instead of just having to watch – again – from the sidelines.”

In honor of School Choice Week, the Bluegrass Institute is releasing a series of video interviews, beginning Sunday, with Billy Harper, a former member of the Kentucky Board of Education.

The latest good news about the performance of charter schools comes from the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which just released “Who Attends Charter Schools and How Are Those Students Doing?”

Some key findings include:

• National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP, otherwise known as the Nation’s Report Card) scores in grades 4 and 8 reading and math have increased between 2003 and 2011, in both regular public and charter schools, with larger gains for charter schools.

• In many subject/grade combinations (black, Hispanic and low-income students) in charter schools performed significantly better in 2011 than those in regular public schools.

• The performance of low-income black students attending charter schools in large cities is particularly striking.

Meanwhile, thanks to selfish “adult interests,” charter schools and other choice options like private-school vouchers remain only a dream in Kentucky.

While students in most of Kentucky's neighboring states have options to escape seriously underperforming schools, students in Kentucky, “must attend their neighborhood public school regardless of its safety, quality, class sizes, teaching staff, or other issues outside their parents’ control,” as Robert Enlow, president and CEO, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, recently stated.

For information, please contact Jim Waters at 270-782-2140 or jwaters@freedomkentucky.com.